How to pack a kitchen for a move

Start earlier than feels necessary

The kitchen is the room you use until the last morning, which is why it is the room that gets packed in a panic. Get ahead of it. Two weeks out, pack the things you will not touch before the move: the good dishes, the serving platters, the small appliances you use twice a year, the spare glassware, the cookbooks. A week out, pack everything except what you need for a few simple meals. The last day is for the few things left, and those go in the essentials box.

Eat down the pantry and the freezer in the weeks before. Open jars and half-used bags of flour are the things people most regret carrying.

Use the right boxes and not too many big ones

Kitchen contents are heavy. A large box full of plates cannot be lifted safely by anyone, and a box that cannot be lifted gets dragged, dropped or left. Use small boxes for dishes, glasses, cans and cookware, and save the medium ones for lighter things like plastics, baking sheets and pantry goods. If you can get double-walled dish boxes, use them for the breakables; they are stiffer and take a knock better.

Tape the bottom of every box with two strips, not one. A kitchen box that opens from underneath halfway to the truck is the most common single breakage on a move.

Plates on edge, glasses upright

Plates survive a move when they are wrapped individually and packed standing on their edge, like records, with crumpled paper underneath and between them. Packed flat, the weight of the stack presses on the bottom plate every time the box lands, and that is the one that cracks. Bowls nest, each wrapped, and go in on their side too.

Glasses and mugs go in upright, each one wrapped, with paper stuffed inside the thin ones and a layer of crumpled paper between rows. Stemware gets the most paper and the top of the box. Fill every gap; a box that rattles when you shake it gently is not finished. Then mark the box fragile on more than one side and note which way is up.

• Wrap every plate and stand it on edge, never flat
• Nest wrapped bowls on their side
• Glasses and mugs upright, paper inside and between
• Stemware on top, with the most paper
• Fill every gap so nothing shifts

Knives, appliances and the awkward things

Knives go in wrapped and taped, blade covered, in a box marked so that whoever opens it knows. Roll them in a dish towel and tape the roll, or use the guards they came with. Nothing sharp goes loose into a box of anything.

Small appliances travel best in their original boxes if you have them; otherwise wrap the cord around the base, tape it, and box each one with paper around it. Pots and pans nest, with paper between them to save the surfaces, and their lids go in beside them wrapped, not on top. Tape the lids of anything liquid that is coming, put it in a bag, and pack it upright in its own box away from the paper goods. Anything flammable, like cooking sprays under pressure, and anything already open and messy is a candidate for the bin rather than the truck; the winter guide has the list of what should not ride in a cold truck at all.

The first-night box

Leave one box out and pack it last: a pan, a pot, a few plates and glasses, cutlery for everyone, a sharp knife, a cutting board, dish soap, a sponge, a towel, the coffee maker and what it needs, and something to eat that night. Mark it clearly, and take it in your own car rather than the truck so it is not the last thing off.

Label every other kitchen box by contents, not just by room. Unpacking a kitchen goes faster when you can find the box with the pans in it without opening six others.